Robert De Niro and Sylvester Stallone will stoke the embers of old glories when they play a pair of ageing bulls in the boxing saga Grudge Match. The Warner Bros production casts 69-year-old De Niro as a retired pugilist who is coaxed back into the ring to battle old rival Stallone – a comparative spring chicken at the age of 66.

While script details remain sketchy, Segal's film implicitly promises a fantasy bout between Raging Bull's Jake LaMotta and Rocky Balboa, the mumbling mainstay of the Rocky franchise. De Niro won the best actor Oscar for his anguished turn as LaMotta in Martin Scorsese's 1980 classic, while the original 1976 film Rocky – scripted by and starring Stallone – scooped three Academy Awards and earned $225m at the international box office.